


Some Strange Files

by RarelySleeping



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game), The X-Files
Genre: Crossover, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-09
Updated: 2018-04-13
Packaged: 2018-07-22 10:41:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7433477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RarelySleeping/pseuds/RarelySleeping
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Unseasonable snowfalls? Unscheduled eclipses? Missing persons? Sounds like just the thing to bring Mulder running. Just wait till he sees the double moon event...</p><p>The LiS/X-Files crossover no one asked for. </p><p>Will almost definitely contain Pricefield at some point.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is entirely dialogue so I'm sorry if it gets confusing as to who's speaking. That's just how it turned out when I wrote it and I kinda like it this way. I'll work on making the next chapters with more description type words though.

“What are we doing here Mulder?”

“Possible kidnapping, Scully, I told you.”

“Except I read the case files you gave me and there’s really nothing to suggest this was a kidnapping. The police decided this Amber girl has just skipped town. So what aren’t you telling me?”

“Maybe I just have a hunch? Can’t we rely on old fashioned instinct once in a while?”

“Uh-huh, sure… And I suppose this has nothing to do with the snowstorm two days ago? Or the eclipse yesterday?”

“Well I can’t deny that’s what caught my attention… Are you aware of the prevailing theories on climate change?”

“Yes, Mulder, much like every scientist, or even most non-scientists, in the past decade.”

“Alright, I admit that was a dumb question. But it leads on to more. There have been several recorded instances of unusual and out of season weather events that have coincided with missing persons reports. There’s a theory, that similar to the long term effects of the carbon dioxide produced by modern day vehicles, the advanced engines and fuels required for interstellar travel could well produce exotic chemical emissions that would cause short term and localized, but potentially severe fluctuations in climate.”

“You’re suggesting the snowstorm was caused by an alien spacecraft? That Rachel Amber was abducted?”

“It’s not entirely out of the realm of possibility, Scully.”

“And these exotic chemicals also caused an unscheduled eclipse? One that was seen worldwide?”

“Well no, but it’s possible that some form of gravity manipulation may have…”

“Mulder! Chemical effects are one thing, and can potentially be explained by the unexpected build-up of industrial emissions. Suggesting that the orbit of the moon was altered due to extra-terrestrial intervention… The mass requirements alone would have had far more effect on the earth’s ecosystem than… It’s preposterous!”

“You’re not willing to go on a little faith here? We’re certainly not at that level of technology ourselves but it’s not unfeasible that older races could be…”

“Mulder…”

“These events these past couple of days have shared a lot of similarities with past incidents…”

“Mulder.”

“And I think it’s reckless to dismiss out of hand…”

“Mulder.”

“Especially given what we’ve come across in the past…”

“We’re here, Mulder.”

“What? Oh…”

“Are Amber’s parents still residents of the town?”

“Yeah, their address is in the files.”

“So we should start with them.”

“Either that or the police station; let them know we're picking up the case. Though how about a third option?”

“Hmm?”

“Lunch? I hear the diner near here is amazing.”


	2. Chapter 2

A man and a woman walk into a diner. As the starts of jokes go, this one seems pretty tame. Of course this isn’t actually a joke. They both look pretty smart and boring. Sure their suits are crumpled but they certainly seem like they started their trip in fucking pristine condition, even if it was a while ago. They seem out of place in my mom’s diner. The guy has a small smile on his face as he looks around. All nostalgic and shit. The woman heads towards the counter but stops a few steps in. She looks back at her friend gives him a look before sighing and following him to a booth.

Me and Max are sitting in a booth of our own. It’s the same one we first sat in a few days ago. And yeah, it’s only been a few days but through simple luck or some other power, it’s always been empty every time we come here. In fact, I’m already starting to think of it as our booth. Not like the one all the way down the other end. The one where me and Rachel used to sit. The one where frank so often sits now…

I shake my head and turn away from the two new arrivals. Max is just as curious about them as I am, I can tell. She’s trying to be all subtle about it though, peering over her menu. She’s certainly not trying to figure out what to order, she’s been hyping up Joyce’s eggs and bacon all morning. I pluck the menu from her hands and shoot her a grin.

“So Max, who do you think the suits are? Maybe a secret government organisation?”

“They’re FBI.” The look she gives me back is deadly serious and I can’t help but give a stupid snort.

“Yeah sure,” It’s a funny notion but nothing that cool would ever happen to our slice of suburban mediocrity, “I bet they’re just lawyers or some such for that Prescott prick.”

“Chloe…” The look she gives me is clearly layered in meaning and it doesn’t take me long to catch on.

“You used your…?” I fish for the right word to use. Her crazy time powers always leave me feeling freaked and awestruck. The way she just knows things or solves things before they even become a problem. Saving my life from trains and suddenly appearing behind locked doors. That shit’s been insane. Like she’s some kinda’ superhero swooping into my dead-end life.

I don’t want to give anything away (not that anyone would be listening) so I just wave my hands in the air all mystic like. She nods, her face more serious than ever. Shit, this seems serious.

“Why are they here?”

“They’re investigating Rachel.”

“No shit?” To be honest I’m a little stunned. Sure I’ve been trying to get someone to take Rachel’s disappearance seriously forever, but to actually get a response. And from the fucking FBI, no less? It’s more than I could have hoped for. Just one more thing in my life that’s actually gone well since Max showed back up.

“Hey.” Max catches my attention. “Just play it cool alright, I don’t want them knowing I have crazy time powers.” The look on her face is pleading. Shit, did I run my mouth off and give her away? I’d have to be careful. She was clearly worried about something.”

“You think they’d?”

“Lock me up? Run freaky lab tests? I so don’t want to find out, so…”

“Relax Super-Max. I can keep a secret, no prob.”I give her a smile and try to show confidence. Max smiles back at me, either from the nickname or my attempt at reassuring her. We stay like that, probably smiling like idiots, for a few seconds before my mom ruins the moment. Max tips her head and gives a nervous look over my shoulder. I turn to see Joyce and the two supposedly FBI agents.

“Chloe, Max. This is Agent Mulder and Agent Scully.” She gestures to the man and the woman in turn. “They’re from the FBI. They saw those posters you’ve been putting up, Chloe, and wanted to ask you a few questions.” Well shit, I guess they really are FBI agents. That or really good at impersonating some. “They say this ain’t anything formal so you don’t have to answer anything you don’t want to. I’ll be right over there if you need me, alright girls?”

“I always knew my mother would abandon me to the feds one day. I had no idea it would be so soon.” I throw my hand to my face in fake dismay. I hear Max laugh a little and shoot her a grin. Max smiles back if a little weakly. She’s nervous with these two so close, but hopefully, I’ve helped take the edge off.

My mom clearly doesn’t appreciate the action quite as much. She gives me her trademark long-suffering sigh that I’ve come to know so well. “If you’re not careful young lady then one of these days I may do just that.” It’s no doubt meant as a joke but a part of me worries that she might one day, if I push a little too much. I shrug the thought off and turn aback to the agents.

“Alright, ask away.” I wince at the tremor I can’t keep out of my voice. Max’s hand appears atop the table and I grab it with a grateful glance. She disappears for five years and she can still read me so well.

“You knew Rachel Amber well?” Agent Mulder asks.

“Yeah,” I reply automatically but feel the need to explain. “I mean she made friends easy, even with the asshole prep kids, so you’re gonna’ hear a lot of people say they knew her well but me and her? We really got each other, you know?” 

“And you don’t think she just ran away from home.”

“No. We always talked about leaving this place, sure, but she wouldn’t have left without me. Or at least, she would have let me know.”

“Alright. The last time you saw her, did she seem distressed? Anxious? Did she mention any troubles with anyone?”

“No. She was planning on going to a party I think? But none of the people there really remembered seeing her there.” I give it a few seconds thought but can’t come up with anything. I didn’t hang out with that crowd and they didn’t care for me. Rachel was the closest thing to a link we had. “I don’t remember their names. It was the Vortex Club losers. You’d probably get more out of them then I could…”

“Did you notice anything odd around the time of her disappearance. Odd lights? Strange sounds?”

“Uh… no? She was just… here one day, gone the next, ya know?” I feel a squeeze of my hand just as my voice starts to catch. I give Max another thankful smile and a small squeeze back. “Nothing weird. It’s only been this week that stuff like the eclipse started happening...”

“Are you going to look into the Prescotts?” Max speaks up for the first time in the conversation and I almost smack myself in the face when I realize why. Goddammit, I’d told her she could trust me and I nearly go blurting everything out at the first prompt. Fuck. With her powers, it was likely I already did and she had to rewind to cover my stupid ass.

“Why would we do that?” Agent Scully asks, as I tune back in.

“Nathan Prescott goes to my school. We… we don’t have any proof, yet, but we think he drugged my friend Kate.”

“Kate Marsh? The girl who tried to kill herself yesterday?” Max nods, “You must be Max Caulfield. That was a very brave thing you did, helping your friend.”

“I was just in the right place at the right time, I guess.” I can already see her shift in posture. She’s going to try to downplay her part in it again. She won’t own up to just how awesome she was for that.

“That’s how I get half of my work done these days,” Mulder responds with a smile and Max smiles back a little. “What makes you think this Nathan was involved? Has he done something like this to someone before?” Me and Max share a few seconds of meaningful eye contact. I’m the proof. But given I tried to blackmail that dick, I may not be the best evidence to give. Max seems to get my hesitance and nods slightly before turning back to the agents. I think I catch the tail end of some meaningful looks of their own.

“Not that we know of…” Max trails off and it’s my turn to give her a little reassurance, squeezing her hand again; both as support and thanks. “We just…”

“It’s alright. Sometimes people just have those reputations. We’ll look into it, but without some sort of proof, we likely won’t be able to do too much.  Well, thank you for your time. Agent Scully and I will leave you two girls to your food.”

“Do you have a cell number or some other form of contact we can have in case we have more questions?”

I give them my number and they say their goodbyes. There’s a few minutes of silence as we dwell on what happened. I didn’t want to let my hopes get up but this was the most progress I’d had since Rachel had disappeared. But then again, the cops had promised to investigate only to turn round just as quick and claim it was just another runaway case. As though Rachel was the sort for person to just leave without a word…

“Well, that was depressing…” I finally manage to say.

“Are you alright? Did you want to…?”

“I’m cool, Max.” I’m not, to be honest, and she probably knows that. But she has enough on her plate. Her power and shit, the government agents snooping about, and me almost spilling the beans on her in our first conversation…

Joyce looks like she’s heading over to us but I wave her off and go back to staring at the menu. My thoughts are spinning a little too fast to really say anything worth it. We’d come here looking to continue our investigation for Rachel only to find someone else actually investigating… Should we just butt out? Let them know what we know and let them get on with it…?

“Ah fuck it, let’s finish up and get out of here. Frank isn’t likely to show up if he hears about FBI sniffing around. We can check back at lunch or something, just in case.” I’d keep looking, I decided. But right now I needed a break from this shit.

“Where do you want to go?”

“The beach, or maybe the lighthouse? I feel like throwing stuff into the ocean.” Something therapeutic. To help me clear my head.

“My vote is for the beach. The lighthouse kinda gives me the wiggins since…”

“Oh right, your little vision quest. Beach it is!” And then we could get back to it. With Super-Max by my side, what could possibly go wrong?

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

“So what do you think?”

“About what?”

“They were hiding something.”

“Well obviously. But we shouldn’t push them, Mulder. I’m sure one of those girls has been targeted for something, probably by this Nathan boy. But they don’t feel they have enough to properly press charges. If we push them but can’t come up with enough to follow through, then it could damage these two girls’ trust in authority and set an unfortunate precedent in this town.”

“I’m not denying that, Scully. But we probably won’t be able to just sit on this. Their testimony could make the difference. It could encourage others to come forward. We’re coming into this case far past the point of it going cold and we need all the help we can get. I’m not saying we push straight away. We should certainly consult with the local police for any further leads but…

“I’m just saying I want to avoid bringing them in further until we have more of a case.”

“And I’m saying that may not be possible. If you ask me we caught a lucky break in the diner and we might not get another in this case. Leaving them more time to come up with an excuse…”

“Mulder! You’re sounding like you think they’re responsible I some way.”

“I didn’t mean it like that Scully. But these girls are obviously reluctant to come forward with what they know; either from fear of peer reprisal or their testimony being ignored. Giving them more time now could result in them convincing themselves of a different course of events out of self defence. An act that will leave us with nothing to go on. If we’re going to find out who abducted Amber then…”

“Honestly, Mulder, do you really still think aliens are behind this?”

“I’m not talking about Alien abduction. Humans are capable of just as much, if not worse acts. If anything I’m convinced that this crime is entirely terrestrial, even if the events surrounding it aren’t.”

“So it is a crime?”

“I certainly think so. Ms Price seemed determined that her friend wouldn’t have left without a word. And given the way she acted today, I’m inclined to believe her. Amber wouldn’t have evoked a reaction like that if she were any less a friend. You think it wasn’t?”

“No, I agree with you. I know I was critical before, but honestly I wanted to make sure of your interests in this case. From the report, the police here were awfully quick to pronounce this a runaway incident. That could have been due to the character of the victim but…”

“But now we need to determine whether that deduction was due to complete lack of evidence or due to some form of corruption perhaps?”

“Exactly.”

“Well now we’ll get to ask them. Here we are.”

“It’s rather impressive, given the size of the town.”

“I heard talk Prescott senior contributed a great deal to the civil establishments.”

“That’s a little suspicious.”

“I wasn’t going to point that out before but given recent circumstances…”

“We may have to give the information we’re told a pinch of salt.”

“Exactly.”

“So are you admitting that the other events in the past couple of days also have more pedestrian causes?”

“I’m not believing anything without proof.”

“Strange, that’s usually my line.”

“I come through sometimes, don’t I?”

“Well I won’t need more than one hand to count them all.”

“You wound me, Scully. I am serious though. It’s certainly plausible that the weather was caused by a surge of local environmental pollutants, but I know of no technology that man has invented to this day that is capable of causing a shift in the lunar orbit; of causing an unscheduled eclipse. And the odds of these two things happening successively without being linked in some way?”

“Now you’re just ascribing connection with correlation.”

“We’ll see, Scully. We’ll see. I can’t promise I won’t say I told you so.”

“I’m fairly sure you won’t get a reason to.”

“You know what I just realized?”

“We didn’t actually get anything to eat at the diner?”

“Yeah.”

“Well maybe they’ll have donuts inside. It is a police station after all.”

 


	4. Chapter 4

“Haha, four! Beat that, nerd!”

I can’t help but roll my eyes in response. It distracts me from my search of the pebbles for all of a second, but as luck would have it, I end up looking straight at the perfect stone. Smooth and flat, like a disc. This is the kind of stone that legends are made of; a goliath killer. As I grab it and stand back up, Chloe adds “And no cheating with your time mumbo jumbo.”

“As if I’d misuse the power over time itself for something as easy as beating you at skipping stones.” I rub a few grains of sand off the side of the pebble and shuffle it around in my grip, getting a feel for it.

“I guess you only use it to save damsels in distress?” I can’t help the grimace that pulls at my face when I think of Kate. I’d gotten lucky. If my power had failed just a short time earlier. Or if I’d said the wrong thing… I shake my head. She was safe now. She was staying in the hospital for a little while and I was going to visit her soon. Then comes the thought that if I’d tried a little harder at being her friend, if I’d taken more time to help her, she wouldn’t even have been on the roof to begin with. I push it away and turn to Chloe, lifting an eyebrow at her.

“I saved you too didn’t I? What does that make you?”

“You got me there.” She leans backwards and throws her arm across her face in a classic fainting pose. “Oh good sir Max, my hero…aargh!” She’d leant back too far, and standing as she was on the slippery rocks by the waves, had fallen into the water.

“Chloe!” I rush over, taking care not to slip myself. “Are you alright?”

“I’m cool. I might have sprained my wrist. Hey, rewind time would you? And promise you won’t mention this? It’d totally ruin my cool girl cred.”

“Don’t worry my lips are sealed.” I smile and hold out my hand, watching as she winds back, leaping out of the water and back on the rock. I let go of my hold over time and reach out to grab her before she can slip. She staggers a bit anyway and I end up holding her up. I guess me suddenly appearing at her side would be a bit of a surprise.

“Guess you saved me again huh? What happened?”

“Sorry, I promised not to talk about it.”

“Uhuh. A likely story. I bet you manufactured this whole thing just to get to hold me.”

“What?”

“Honestly Max, one kiss and you can’t keep your hands off me.”

“Right…”

“You got the thirst, Max. And I can’t say I blame you. I’m pretty great.”

“I can still drop you, you know.”

“Fair point.”

She still waggles her eyebrows at me, a smirk appearing on her lips. Man, she can be a real dork sometimes. It’s times like these I can see parts of the old Chloe I knew before I left. Still so innocent and carefree. I guess losing David like that really hurt her. And I didn’t help by being a doofus and not staying in touch. I’m so lucky she let me back into her life. And it’s not like I don’t love this new Chloe. She’s rad as hell and I’m so lucky that she’s still my friend.

“Hey Max, it’s cool now. I can stand on my own.” She says, pulling me out of my reverie. I realise I still have my arms around her as if trying to keep her up. Or as if I was… I can’t help the slight blush as I disentangle myself and shuffle a few steps away. I’d dropped the stone I’d found and made myself busy pretending to look for another one. Where was the convenient subject change when you needed one?

“Alright,” I say eventually, willing us past the awkward moment with sheer force of will. “Get ready for the most skips you’ve ever seen.” I come back up with another stone. This one isn’t a perfect example of its kind, a god amongst pebbles, but it would have to do. I can’t stay crouched down in the awkward silence any longer.

“Alright, Hippie, show me what you got.”

I take my stance and wind back, putting all those hours of practice I have of skipping stones to good use. My arm swings forward in a powerful arc and lets loose it’s payload at the perfect moment. The stone is sent hurtling towards its destiny.

One skip.

Two skips…

Plunk.

“Aw dude that was weak sauce. Barely even three.”

That was odd. I could have sworn the second skip had sent it off in another direction. Almost like…

“I take it back. You get a free rewind, Maxaroni. You need it.”

“I hit something.”

“Yeah, like a rock, genius.”

“No, there’s something else in there.” I take a few steps towards the water, trying to peer into the surf. The water is foaming up around something. It’s October but it’s not too late in the day and there aren’t too many clouds. But the water is dark there. Like something’s blocking the light from reaching further down. That dark shape… is it moving?

It is!

As it gets closer, I realise just how big it is. And my sense of dread only rises as I get a proper idea of what shape it is.

“Holy shit,” Chloe says from besides me. I couldn’t help but agree. I’ve heard about beached whales before. I’ve seen reports of them on TV. There’s not much time to act to get them back in the water. I pull my phone from my pocket and dial 911. Even as it rings, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be doing. Do I ask for the fire department? Or the coast guard?

“Chloe, find some buckets or something,” I yell.

“Max…” She isn’t moving.

“We need to keep it wet!”

“Max…” her voice is more insistent. I turn to her, trying to figure out what was wrong. The emergency line picks up as I do but I don’t respond. I can see now what had stopped Chloe. A couple of buckets aren’t going to help. The sight before us is like a scene from some apocalypse film. All along the shore, there are dozens of beached whales.

“Why would they…?” It's horrible but I can’t look away. Now and again a voice speaks from my phone but I can’t bring myself to do anything about it. A thought occurs to me. The snowstorm, the eclipse, and now these whales. What if they were all linked? What if…

“Did I cause this?”


End file.
